The present application is related to the following co-pending U.S. Patent applications:
U.S. Patent application entitled, "Method and Apparatus for Managing Communications Between a Client and a Server in a Network," having application Ser. No. 08/660,087, and filed on Jun. 3, 1996; PA1 U.S. Patent application entitled, "Method and Apparatus for Providing Proxying and Transcoding of Documents in a Distributed Network," having application Ser. No. 08/656,924, and filed on Jun. 3, 1996; PA1 U.S. Patent application entitled, "A Method and Apparatus for Using Network Address Information to Improve the Performance of Network Transactions," having application Ser. No. 08/656,923, and filed on Jun. 3, 1996; which are assigned to the assignee of the present invention.
1. The Field of the Invention
The present invention pertains to the field of user interfaces for accessing remotely stored information over a network. More particularly, the present invention relates to methods of scaling and displaying a server-provided image.
2. The Prior State of the Art
The number of homes and businesses using personal computers has increased substantially in recent years, and along with this increase has come an explosion in the use of the Internet, and particularly the World-Wide Web (Web). The Web is a collection of formatted hypertext pages located on numerous computers around the world that are logically connected by the Internet. Although the Web has in the past been a source of primarily scientific information, it is now a valuable resource for information relating to almost any subject, including business, entertainment, travel, and education, to name just a few. Advances in network technology, and especially in software such as "Web browsers" (software applications which provide a user interface to the Web), have made the Web accessible to a large segment of the population.
A problem associated with the prior art is that, in some cases, images that are downloaded via a network connection are not appropriately sized for the display being used. One prior art solution for dealing with Web pages larger than the display is to allow horizontal and vertical scrolling. However, it has been found that horizontal scrolling can be confusing to many people. Therefore, it would be advantageous to provide a solution to displaying oversized image maps that eliminates the need for horizontal scrolling.
In addition, Web browsers in the prior art have various other disadvantages that are overcome by the present invention, as described in the detailed description which follows.